The Navajo American Indians―The reservation of the Navajo people (dine') embraces an area of approximately 28,000 square miles, ranging from northwestern New Mexico across Arizona, to a strip of land in southern Utah. Geographically their land is situated on the Colorado Plateau, and the people number approximately 200,000. Most of their dine' speaking (Athapascan) relatives live far up in the north-west of North America. The glotto-chronological distance of the Navajos from their northern relatives is approximately 800 years; their arrival in the Southwest as hunters and gatherer's, in the company of other Apachean groups, may be estimated at around C.E. 1500. Navajo religion consists of twenty or more overlapping but nevertheless distinct ceremonial traditions. These traditions are traceable in mythology, by way of geographized ecstatic journeys (vision quests), to their respective shamanic founder or founders. They are traceable in history, possibly, to a point in time when several former shamanic traditions became amalgamated into the conglomerate healing ceremonials of later priestly hataałii or "singers." The quickest entry into Navajo religion, at this web site and for the time being, can be achieved by way of looking at the 1979 Coyoteway, a Navajo Holyway Healing Ceremonial―also by way of the 1973 essay, "Star Upon the Road of Life…" [access in Karl W. Luckert-- Bibliography]. Portions of The Navajo Hunter Tradition (1975), and summaries of other research projects, will be added later to this collection.

Back to the History of Religions home page